


Viva La Vida

by TeasTakingOver



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Anybody want this idea?, Blood warning I guess, Car Accidents, Coma, Don't waste your time this isn't even good, GMM - Freeform, Gen, Good Mythical Morning - Freeform, I found this in my drive, Out of Body Experiences, Probably never gonna complete it so if you wanna continue this by yourself go ahead y'all, Why Did I Write This?, did i do this right, ghostly, i guess, not complete, prob based off that one hannah montana episode idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 09:19:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12339852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeasTakingOver/pseuds/TeasTakingOver
Summary: His hospital bed might as well be his grave. His chart was the tombstone with his fate carved in pen on the top: COMATOSE. Rhett might have stuck by his side the entire time, his metal chair clanking like a church bell, waiting for his friend to come back. But what he didn't know was that Link was there the whole time, and he became a guardian angel for the both of them.





	Viva La Vida

**Author's Note:**

> I HAD NO PLANS FOR THIS AND WROTE IT TO PASS TIME. DON'T HAVE ANY EXPECTATIONS AND KEEP LOW STANDARDS. 
> 
> The summary prob doesn't make sense still even after reading this but you have to understand I had a whole story planned out based around it that I just didn't go through with. If you wanna know it you can scream at me on tumblr @teastakingover.
> 
> This was just something I wrote on a binge a while ago and completely forgot about

_“Rhett, please Let’s talk about-”_

_“Let’s NOT talk about this, okay!?”_

_His last couple of steps felt unnaturally heavy under his feet. Seconds on his watch dragged by. The sound of pavement thundering against his shoes echoed loud in his head as he crossed the street._

_“Come back here, we aren’t finished talking about this!”_

_His frustrated heartbeat muffled his senses to the world around him._

_“I just told you we aren’t talking about it!” The tall blond continued walking down the sidewalk, not trusting himself to look back. “Link, don’t follow me.”_

_And it was just them._

_“You’re being childish.” Link watched his best friend leave him. For how long, he would never know. He decided that he was done. That this was it for the day. Maybe they can talk it through and apologize by the end of business hours. That’s normally what happened anyways. But he was tired of fighting with a stubborn man who made him feel ignored when he's stressed and Link tries to help out. No, actually, not just ignored. Invisible, even._

_Fists clenched, Link pivoted on his foot and took a step off the sidewalk, prepared to go back to the office, and blackness quickly became his friend._

_When he heard tires squealing and a prolonged, shrieking honk just yards behind him, Rhett abruptly stopped in his tracks. A pit in his stomach sudden tore open with irreparable terror keeping him frozen._

_When he would finally bring himself to turn around and face the scene, memories burned black into his brain in a similar pattern Link's blood flowed dark onto the asphalt._

_And suddenly all expectations of talking to his best friend of twelve years- his bloodied blood brother who he could never stay mad at- flew away like that damn speeding car._

_‘Let’s _not_ talk about that.’ _  
\-----------

Link could hardly force himself to think for a minute. When thoughts did come, they just told him to take a deep breath and calm down. Anxiousness, he knew far too well. He knew he could at least try to breathe, but it seemed that the connection from his brain to his body blocked the commands path. He could not do it. His body- or whatever it was he had left- rejected the action. An icy feeling settled in the pit of his transparent stomach.  
 _‘No breath.’_ He whispered a curse to himself. _‘No life.’_

_‘I’m dying.’_

Link stood in the doorway of a pure white hospital room. Everything was neat, organized. The atmosphere he felt was anything but, however. There were two windows, one on the closed door and one right across from it, showing the sunrise over a bustling Los Angeles morning. In between those windows were two men in front of him. One tall blond sitting in the chair, elbows supporting him upright on his knees, fingers curling in his hair. They tugged occasionally in frustration.

Link couldn’t tell, but there was a solemn look on his face. His eyes were slowly becoming bloodshot. Everything about his body language screamed bad news, “and not the kind like my dog is missing or I lost my keys.” Bad news.

The other man was laying in front of the blond. There was nothing special about the man wearing the hospital gown. Whoever he was, his blankets only came up to tuck under his hips, showing off the many wires and tubes attached to him. It was as if he was on display. It was… quite objectifying. The first man Link had seen was easily identified as Rhett, but who was this other guy?

As far as he knew, Rhett did not have any friends or family members that looked like that. And he looked sad. _Why is Rhett so sad?_ Link did not remember riding to the hospital with him to visit anyone. Come to think of it, he did not remember coming to the hospital at all. It was a strange feeling to wake standing in the doorway to such an emotional scene. The only thing that came to Link’s attention about the second man was the short black hair. That, and the giant tube going down his throat.

_'No... he's dying?'_

Link took a light step to the right. His feet felt strange. His entire being felt weird. It was as if gravity had no rules with him and any step could send him floating away. He hadn’t felt anything like it since his college years where he had dabbled in drugs with some buddies of his a few times, before dropping the activities completely so that they did not become a habit. But the foreign feeling was nothing compared to the brick thrown to his brain, or most noticeably in his throat, when he walked over enough to see the face of the hospitalized man.

In the back of his mind he knew who it was from the start, but it took him seconds before he could consciously label what he was seeing. _‘That’s me on the bed.’_ He thought. _‘But… I’m also right here.’_ The constant beeping of the machine by his bedside- the other Link’s bedside- did nothing to disprove his thoughts of _‘I'm dying. I died.’_

Feeling as if you had died is such a better feeling compared to seeing your failing body stuck to unsympathetic machines on a hospital table.

After a few seconds, everything fully registered when Rhett whispered oh so softly. “Link, I’m so sorry…”

His once numbly cold form burst into action, trapped under a flood of emotion and feeling. Proper responses erupted in an improper way; confusion, fear, anxiety. Anger, to some level. His hands grabbed at his shirt and twisted the soft fabric into tight knots. His body doubled down in a lurch. Primal instinct kicked in and he screamed as loud as he possibly could. Seconds seemed to pause just for him so that he could wail out his ghostly cries. Even screaming felt like it was not right. And though his eyes were on a straight stare towards his unconscious body, a thought played in the background of his mind and he could see Rhett. Not the one sitting next to his bedside- his comatose bedside- but the one in his memories from weeks ago- or was it months? Hell, it could have been years ago, when they had a conversation about screaming in general.

Because that was the kind of stuff they talked about. They would have conversations about small things and heavy topics. And now, how could they mutter ideas and facts to one another if his screams could not even reach him?

_“People scream when they’re scared because the noise triggers a fight or flight response. It conveys to other people that there is some sort of danger around.” Rhett had recited, probably something he read from an online article. “The noise actually goes straight to the part of the brain that senses fear, unlike other sounds.”_

But Link continued his own yelling, irrationally trying to make sense of it all. His lungs felt like they had an icy grip on them as if he were running out of air, but he could not bother to breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He kept screaming in hopes that the noise would hit Rhett’s ears, send a signal to his brain, and trigger the response that something was wrong. So wrong. To somehow help him. _‘Wake me up, Rhett.’_ He silently pleaded.

Helplessly, Link’s distress died down to mere sobs. The icy feeling died down and melted over his ghostly ribs, slowly settling as a reminder that this was all he could feel now. Cold. Rolling over him like black oil. He would be shivering if he had living skin and flesh.

What felt even colder was his memory. Why was he in the hospital in the first place? Why was he here?

Link stared at his best friend. He tried to think of what could have landed him here in this situation. Tried thinking of how and why, but no matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t. Thoughts and days blurred at the edges. 

He had memories of Rhett always being there to help him if help was needed. When a kid had bullied him when they were children, Rhett punched the kid for it. When Link went out on a date to the movies, Rhett was the one to drive them there and waited outside in case he needed anything. Whenever he needed an ear to listen or a shoulder to lean on, Rhett was there. He was always just _there._

And now Rhett is here, sitting besides his hospital bed silently. The tall man who always stood with his head held high now curled in on himself in a dingy metal chair, chin tucked to his chest. Except he wasn’t here. 

Sure he was only a few feet away, but Link couldn’t have felt any farther. They were on a totally different plane of existence. _‘I’m here, but I’m not.’_ It was an alien feeling to be in such distress and not have Rhett right there to help him. The room seemed to spin in tune with his whirling thoughts. Was it possible to be nauseous at this point?

Even though he had stopped screaming, it seemed like the entire room vibrated with the echos of his swan song. The reading lamp by his bedside had wavered, it’s light growing dim before regrowing to it’s normal glare. Not that either Rhett or Link noticed. Link just stood there and stared at his best friend. Neither made a word, though Link wanted desperately to break the silence. As the quiet overtook every corner of the room and his mind, Link could feel tears welling.

 _‘Why is it possible to scream and cry, but not to breathe?’_ He wondered. What would Rhett say? _‘Because ghosts are supposed to live the rest of their eternity in sorrow and despair. No ghost movie would be any good if the spirit was just, like, cool being dead.’_

Right away, Link tried to think of some kind of scientific approach or rebuttal, but logic was not what he needed right now. He needed his best friend. That’s all he ever really needed. He needed mindless banter and true emotions in those words.

“Could you imagine,” Link muttered, carrying on the fantasy conversation, “if a ghost just appeared and said, “hey man, cool place you have here. You wanna go grab a cup of coffee and hit the gym?” As his mouth curled at the ends, he could feel a tear dripping over the edge of his eye and track down his cheek to meet his lip. A subtle reminder that that conversation could never happen. No conversation between the two will ever happen. Not anymore. There was no way to fix this.

He wanted to breath. To feel fresh air to rush into his lungs. 

Link felt like dropping to his knees and performing an Oscar-award worthy monologue, complete with tears and screaming “why” to the heavens. No script but perfect to the word. He’d put any actor out of business if he did so, and the audiences would adore the emotional scene. Except he was no movie actor. There was no audience.

There was just Rhett.

No.

There was just _him._ There was just his body on the bed, and his pain in the doorway leading nowhere. 

There seemed to be no outside world beyond this hospital room.

He was all alone. 

“There’s just me…” Link let his tears run. 

 

_“And me.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I have a bunch of little tidbits laying around my Google Drive lol I need to organize my mess.


End file.
